Who are the musicians playing a Stradivarius? Who are the musicians playing a Stradivarius? Who are the musicians playing a Stradivarius? CLASSICAL Aug 5, 2016 Several world-class soloists play violins by Antonio Stradivari, but those instruments are not universally cherished as one might think. Christian Tetzlaff, for example, stopped playing a Stradivarius and switched to a violin from 2002. In his words, a Strad does not work as well for the “Big Romantic and 20th-century concertos.” Joshua Bell in 2008. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons Even though many blind experiments demonstrate that it is hard to distinguish a Strad from a Guarneri del Gesu or even 20th century instruments, Stradivari instruments are undeniably famous for the quality of their sounds. Spruce for the top, willow for internal blocks and maple for the back, ribs and neck were the types of wood Antonio Stradivari used to create violins that now sell for tens of millions of dollars (a viola made was recently put up for auction with a minimum bid for $45 million).

Only a few hundred of original Stradivari instruments survive to this day: 244 violins, 13 known extant violas, 63 celli, five guitars, one harp and two mandolins. Here are the world-class performers currently playing a Stradivarius. Anne-Sophie Mutter The German violinist who was mentored by Herbert von Karajan and debuted onstage with Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 4 alternates between two Stradivari. One is the Emiliani, from 1703. According to Mutter, it has a “superb” sound but it lacks edginess. Beethoven’s sonatas, Brahms, Sibelius and the contemporary works she favors need roughness, which is provided by her second Strad, the “Lord Dunn-Raven,” which was built during Stradivari’s golden period in 1710. Itzhak Perlman Perlman plays the Soil Stradivarius from 1714, which was formerly owned by Yehudi Menuhim and is to this day considered one of the finest products manufactured by Stradivari.

It is recognizable for its red varnish and a two-piece maple back with the flames of the grain joined. The fame of this instrument transcends the classical music world. The Soil is featured in the videogame Fallout 3, where the player has to retrieve it from an underground bunker that serves as a sanctuary to the musical arts in a post-apocalyptic world. Joshua Bell Bell’s Strad is the Gibson ex Huberman (1713) and that instrument has quite an interesting story: before being owned by Bell, it was stolen twice from his previous owner Bronislaw Huberman. The violinist had played the violin when it was not his, and the then-owner Norbert Brainin jokingly told him that, if he had four million dollars, then the violin could be his. Bell then came across the Gibson ex Huberman by chance, finding out that the violin was about to be sold to a German industrialist so it would become part of a collection. So, he resolved to sell his previous violin, actually another Strad, for over two million dollars and managed to buy the cherished Gibson ex Huberman for a little under four million dollars. This story is told extensively in the documentary The Return of the Violin.

Salvatore Accardo The Turin-born violinist and conductor is best known for his recordings of Paganini’s 24 caprices and he was the first violinist to record all six concerti by the composer. He currently owns the Hart ex Francescati (1718) and previously the Firebird ex Saint-Euxpery. Edvin Marton This Hungarian violinist became known to mainstream audiences because ice skaters the likes of Evgeny Plushenko and Stéphane Lambiel danced to his music. He performed alongside Dilma Bilan during the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. He studied in the most prestigious music academies, including the Tchaikovsky Academy in Moscow and the Juillard School in New York. In 1997, he won a world competition in Canada; as a result, a Swiss bank granted him lifetime use of the Paganini Stradivari (1697). Anne Akiko Meyers This top-selling classical instrumentalist owns two Stradivari, the Royal Spanish and the Molitor.

For her recording of Bach’s Concerto in D Minor for Two Violin, for instance, she plays both parts: one with the Royal Spanish and the other with the Molitor. Yo Yo Ma Even though he is not a violinist, Yo Yo Ma plays a Stradivari instrument as well. He currently uses the Davydov Stradivarius, a rich-orange-red-hued cello formerly owned by Jacqueline du Pré. Du Pré found it unpredictable, so she eventually abandoned it. “Jackie’s unbridled dark qualities went against the Davydov,” Yo Yo Ma commented. “You have to coax the instrument. The more you attack it, the less it returns.” Previous article Anne-Sophie Mutter plays Dvořák’s Violin Concerto Anne-Sophie Mutter plays Dvořák’s Violin Concerto Violin Concerto in A minor (00:37:34) Anne-Sophie Mutter Violin Artist biographies To this day, guest appearances by Anne-Sophie Mutter with the Berliner Philharmoniker are an event. After all, there is no other musician of our time whose career has been more closely linked with the orchestra.

In early February 2013, the violinist interpreted Dvořák’s Violin Concerto at the Philharmonie. It was a sensation when the just 13-year-old Anne-Sophie Mutter performed Mozart’s G major Concerto at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival under the direction of Herbert von Karajan in 1977. “She played gorgeously, and above all, not at all like a child prodigy,” raved the reviewer in die Welt. This described concisely the phenomenon that was Mutter: a musician, whose youthful appearance contrasted with incredible technique and artistic maturity. And then there was, and of course still is, her tone which revealed itself in this Dvořák performance: Velvety and sonorous, both fresh and flexible, unspeakably beautiful but never aiming for superficial gloss. In the second half of the concert, all attention was on the man at the conductor’s desk: Manfred Honeck, music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, who made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker this evening. He presented one of the most powerful and diverse compositions of the 20th century: Witold Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra.

Folk Music and Avant Garde Music by Antonín Dvořák and Witold Lutosławski “Not a trace of artificiality or contrivance”: Antonín Dvořák “Anyone who has followed the development of contemporary music for 30 years or more will, with the passing years, have been ever more forcibly struck by a peculiarly melancholy realization, namely that of how extraordinarily rare is a fresh and intact talent … The men who at present awaken the greatest interest in the sphere of music are so terribly serious. We must study them, and after studying them must buy a revolver in order to defend our opinion of them. I cannot help thinking how splendid it would be if a musician should appear once again about whom we should think as little of quarrelling as about spring.” Many a music lover in our own day would heartily concur with these lines. But from the wording and humour of this grievance against “contemporary” music, one may already suspect that it was not written by a contemporary of ours.

In fact it appeared on 15 November 1878 in the Berlin Nation-Zeitung after the critic Louis Ehlert had made the acquaintance of two compositions by the then still largely unknown Antonín Dvořák. Ehlert rhapsodised: “A divine naturalness flows through this music … Not a trace of artificiality or contrivance.” Had Ehlert been present at the world premiere of Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A minor op. 53 in Prague on 14 October 1883, he would have found passages from his article, which appeared five years earlier, to be prophetic. “There is no question here of some kind of imitation” – that is how he characterised Dvořák’s style, and even the Violin Concerto, its classical three-movement layout notwithstanding, has new and individual elements. Like Felix Mendelssohn before him, Dvořák dispenses with an orchestral exposition in the opening movement and goes straight to the heart of the concertante events. But how differently he fashions the dialogue between the symphonically deployed orchestra and the solo instrument – and how “effectively and colourfully everything is arranged”.

Although there are places, like the first movement’s truncated recapitulation that leads without break into the Adagio, where Dvořák deviates from established formal procedures, there is “not a trace of artificiality or contrivance” to be found in his Violin Concerto. “A divine naturalness flows” through the mainly lyrical slow second movement, which however is not without pronounced accents and hymnlike effusions. “What and how much of Bohemian national music” has found its way into Dvořák’s melodious Violin Concerto, especially into its earthy three-section finale movement, is hard to determine – “but that is a matter of indifference”. In a letter to his Berlin publisher Simrock, who among other works issued the Violin Concerto, Dvořák wrote in 1879: “As you see, I’m not one of those who want only to get rich quickly and, unfortunately, through inordinate haste too often produce works betraying a lack of artistic solidity.” That remark notwithstanding, even Dvořák now and then made things easy for himself. His Romance for violin and orchestra in F minor op.

11 represents the orchestration of a work for violin and piano, which is in turn based on the slow movement from his String Quartet in F minor op. 9. But who could object when listening to this subtly composed elegiac music? Even when practising compositional second exploitation, as the Berlin critic Ehlert expressed it, Dvořák remained “a complete, and indeed a completely natural talent”. “Music that I enjoy listening to”: Witold Lutosławski Barely a century after Dvořák had paved the way to a brilliant composing career, Witold Lutosławski confessed that he only created “music that I enjoy listening to”. Not an atypical statement from a 20th-century composer, one will suppose – and yet perhaps one that may also help to explain the success of Lutosławski’s music: the high level of tonal and rhythmic construction in this mathematic student’s multi-layered and meticulously wrought scores have found and continue to find, not only the admiration of musical experts, but also unusually wide popularity among the public.

The reason for this acceptance may be that the greatly varying compositional techniques he has employed over the years, including experimental structures, have never represented a compositional end in itself but have always been directed towards the listening experience. Lutosławski was of two minds in his relationship to folk music. Like many composers before him, he saw it as a chance to breathe new life into the increasingly timeworn system of major-minor tonality. At the same time, working with such melodies also ran the risk of criticism for propagating a populist agenda in the service of socialist realism. The ambivalence of this situation became clearly apparent when Lutosławski was awarded the Polish Prime Minister’s Prize – for a cycle of children’s songs! “I was decorated by the authorities for writing functional music,” Lutosławski later recalled. “They thought I had composed them to do justice to the aesthetic guidelines.” In the Concerto for Orchestra, which Lutosławski worked on from 1950 to 1954, folk music – as the composer explained – was “merely a raw material used to build a large musical form of several movements which does not in the least originate either from folksongs or from folk dances.

A work came into being, which I could not help including among my most important pieces, as a result of my fleeting connection with folk music and in a way that for me was quite unexpected. This work is the Concerto for Orchestra.” Folk material is manifested in various ways in the multi-sectional first movement. Simple diatonic motives are, as the composer has stated, “blended with chromatic atonal counterpoint, and with non-functional, multi-coloured capricious harmonies”, while polymetric structures emerge from the rhythmic development of individual motifs and their combination with accompanimental figures. The middle movement is formally tighter, an elfishly scurrying scherzo with contrasting Trio and a drastically foreshortened reprise. As exemplified vividly by the closing section, which is largely given over to the percussion, individual instrumental sections repeatedly take on solo assignments in Lutosławski’s composition, making it a genuine “concerto” for orchestra. The last movement consists of three parts, to an extent artfully overlapped. It begins pianissimo with harp and double basses presenting a folk-tinged bass theme, which is then treated as the ostinato foundation of a series of highly diverse variations.

Following long stretches of build-up, the intensity of this section gradually diminishes at the end and leads directly to the freer form of a toccata, whose playful motor rhythms are eventually countered by a brass chorale. The virtual apotheosis in the work’s closing bars, never lapsing into superficial exulting, is further evidence of Lutosławski’s stupendous compositional technique and refined ear for sonorities. Although the Concerto for Orchestra was the work that made Lutosławski famous in the West, he claimed in later years: “I don’t especially care for this work, but apparently it has managed to retain a certain freshness.” For Lutosławski, there were unpleasant memories connected with the necessity he once felt to defend his compositional language’s modernity when resorting to folk material, apparently in reference to the character of the Concerto for Orchestra. But his originality in this work in successfully reconciling folk music and the avant-garde represents a stroke of genius about which we today should think as little of quarrelling as about spring.

Mark Schulze Steinen Translation: Richard Evidon Manfred Honeck studied violin and viola at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and was a member of the Vienna Philharmonic for many years. The Austrian began his conducting career during this time as assistant to Claudio Abbado with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. In 1991 he became principal conductor at the opera house in Zurich and two years later, he was awarded the European Conductor’s Award. Manfred Honeck then worked with the MDR Sinfonieorchester in Leipzig and in Oslo, where he not only took over at short notice as musical director of the Norwegian National Opera for one year in 1997, but also, after a highly successful European tour, was engaged for several years as principal guest conductor of the local Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2000 to 2006 he was chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm, and principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague from 2008 to 2011, a position he will take over again from 2013 to 2016.

Moreover, Manfred Honeck was general music director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart from 2007 to 2011, where he conducted works including premieres of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, Mozart’s Idomeneo, Verdi’s Aida, Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, and Wagner’s Lohengrin and Parsifal. Guest performances in opera have taken him to the Semperoper in Dresden, the Komische Oper in Berlin, the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, the “White Nights Festival” in St. Petersburg and the Salzburg Festival. During his extensive activities, he has conducted leading international orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since the 2008/2009 season, he has been music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and in February 2012, his contract was extended for a second time, now to the end of the 2019/2020 season.

Manfred Honeck, who was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, now makes his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Anne-Sophie Mutter was born in Rheinfelden in Baden. She received her first violin lessons from Erna Honigberger when she was five. She later studied at the conservatory in Winterthur under Aida Stucki. She began her distinguished career at the Lucerne Festival in 1976, and the following year, she made her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival under the baton of Herbert von Karajan. Since then, she has performed all over the world as a concert soloist with the leading international orchestras and as a chamber musician. In 1978, Anne-Sophie Mutter perfomed with the Philharmoniker in Berlin for the first time, playing the Violin Concerto in G major, K. 216 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, conducted by Karajan.

She was the soloist in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with the Philharmoniker and Karajan at the opening concert of the Chamber Music Hall on 28 October 1987. Her most recent performance in a concert with the orchestra in Berlin was in January 2011 with the Violin Concerto by Antonín Dvořák, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. A particular interest of Anne-Sophie Mutter is contemporary violin music: composers who have dedicated works to her include Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Sir André Previn and Wolfgang Rihm, whose Lichtes Spiel for violin and orchestra she (as artist in residence) premiered in mid-November 2010 in New York under the direction of Michael Francis with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2008, the artist set up the “Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation”.

The aim of the foundation is to further increase worldwide support for promising young musicians, something which the violinist has supported since 1997 with the establishment of the “Freundeskreis der Anne-Sophie Mutter Stiftung e.V.” (Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation). It also supports medical and social projects through regular benefit concerts. Anne-Sophie Mutter has received many prestigious awards for her musical activities and her commitment to cultural and social issues, including the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Bavarian Order of Merit, the Austrian Grand Decoration of Honour, the French “Ordre des Arts et des Lettres”, the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize and the Leipzig Mendelssohn Award. In 2010, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. A year later, she also received the Brahms Prize, and the Erich Fromm Prize and the Gustav Adolf Prize for her social commitment. In 2012 Anne-Sophie Mutter was also awarded the Distinguished Artistic Leadership Award of the Atlantic Council.

Available on CD in our shop Anne-Sophie Mutter | Biography & History | AllMusic google+ Artist Biography by Steven Coburn One of the most charismatic and best-loved violinists of modern times, Germany's Anne-Sophie Mutter began her studies on the piano at the age of five. She shortly added violin lessons with Erna Hornigberger. In 1970 and again in 1974, she won first place in the Jugend Musiziert contest for young musicians. Herbert von Karajan heard her play at the age of 13 and paved the way for her international career. This began in 1977 with appearances at the Salzburg Festival and with her English debut under Daniel Barenboim . The next year, 1978, she made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and released her first recording, of the Mozart Third and Fifth concertos. In 1980, she debuted in America under Zubin Mehta , then made her first Carnegie Hall recital appearance in 1988.

In spite of a difficult personal life (she lost her husband in 1995, leaving her with two small children to care for), Mutter has accelerated an already successful career to the level of super-stardom. She is currently one of the most sought after violinists and her recordings are always eagerly awaited best sellers. Mutter is best known for her rich tone and her impassioned and exciting performances of the classic violin repertory, but she has also been instrumental in commissioning and performing new works for the violin. Among the composers she has worked with are Wolfgang Rihm , Sebastian Currier , Norbert Moret , Witold Lutoslawski , and Krzysztof Penderecki . Both before and, for a time, after Mutter 's marriage to conductor André Previn in 2002, the pair performed and recorded together frequently. In September 2006, the couple quietly announced their divorce, and in October 2006 Mutter announced that she would be retiring from the concert stage on her 45th birthday in June 2008.

She later stated that this was a misinterpretation, and in 2011 was still appearing in concert, premiering Lichtes Spiel by Rihm , and making recital tours. Mutter also devotes time to her foundation fostering exceptional young musicians. The Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation | ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER Promoting young musicians The Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation "Music is only touching when it tells a story. And I am on the track of upcoming story tellers," says Anne-Sophie Mutter about the foundation she brought to life. Thanks to the support of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, Daniel Müller-Schott, Roman Patkoló, Sergey Khachatryan and Arabella Steinbacher have also become great "story tellers". Occasionally even at world premieres, because in addition to traditional promotion measures, the Foundation also commissions compositions for its scholarship students. And: The Mutter Virtuosi, an ensemble of former and current scholarship students under the management of its name provider and founder, went on tour for the first time in 2011.

The promotion of young musicians since 1997 Anne-Sophie Mutter herself experienced how necessary targeted support is, especially during the decisive starting years. That is why the violinist founded the "Freundeskreis der Anne-Sophie Mutter Stiftung e.V." [Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation] in 1997. The foundation of the same name with its head office in Munich could be established in 2008: the Foundation's objective is the global support of young, highly talented violin, viola, cello and contrabass soloists. "Apart from huge amounts of money being swallowed by the actual education, financing a suitable string instrument often causes big problems. In addition there are respective insurance fees, trips to the world's famous artists - meetings which are indispensable for the development of a young musician. The support of young talents signifies a challenge for all those who, like me, have a particularly heart-felt interest in the future of musical life," says Anne-Sophie Mutter. Individual support The scholarship students of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation are supported according to their individual needs - on which the benefactress spends a lot of time.

This may, for example, include tuition with Anne-Sophie Mutter or support in the selection and arrangement of a suitable teacher as well as the provision of instruments, establishing contacts with famous soloists and their master classes or the arrangement of auditions with conductors. "Instead of setting fixed and inflexible rules, I am more concerned with giving every student what he or she needs", explains Anne-Sophie Mutter, who selects the scholarship students personally. In this regard she is advised and supported by an artistic advisory board comprised of the cellist Lynn Harrell. At the moment, the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation supports seven scholarship students from the USA, Europe and Asia. Since 1997, 30 young musicians have been supported and six instruments financed from the Foundation’s capital. Commissioned works Boston, 19 April 2007: Sir André Previn conducts the world premiere of his concerto for violin, contrabass and orchestra with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall. The soloists: Anne-Sophie Mutter and Roman Patkoló.

Previn tailored the work, created by assignment of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, to suit the scholarship student Patkoló: "Deeply impressed by his skills, I have written him a virtuoso part which no audience has ever heard before", says the composer. The Previn Double Concerto forms the prelude for further composition assignments , with which the Foundation radically expands the narrow original repertoire for contrabass and thus also for the scholarship student Patkoló: The "Duo Concertante per violino e contrabbasso" by Krzysztof Penderecki was heard on 9 March 2011 in Hanover for the first time, and Anne-Sophie Mutter has given life to "Dyade" by Wolfgang Rihm for violin and contrabass together with Roman Patkoló on 3 April in New York.

As part of the second Mutter Virtuosi tour, which included performances in seven cities in Taiwan, China and South Korea in June 2013, the fourth world premiere by Roman Patkoló and Anne-Sophie Mutter followed: on June 6, they performed Sebastian Currier’s “Ringtone Variations” for the first time – another work commissioned by the Foundation. On August 26, 2015 the world premiere of Sir André Previn’s Nonet for Two String Quartets and Double Bass follows in Edinburgh. The work was commissioned by Anne-Sophie Mutter for her Virtuosi and is dedicated to the violinist. The instrumentation of this nonet gives current and former scholarship holders of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation new performance opportunities while also expanding the double bass repertoire. The Previn Nonet will be performed on ten evenings during the Mutter Virtuosi 2015 European festival tour – resulting in no less than eight national premieres. The Mutter Virtuosi During the past years, Anne-Sophie Mutter has repeatedly performed concerts together with the foundation's scholarship students - to introduce them to the life of a professional musician while simultaneously introducing them to a broad audience.

She has commenced with the project The Mutter Virtuosi in the spring of 2011: this new ensemble under the musical management of the violinist consists of current and former scholarship students of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation as well as selected other young musicians. The first tour in 2011 featured stops in eleven European cities. In 2013 the soloist ensemble appeared in Asia. In November 2014 the Mutter Virtuosi will perform in Canada and the USA – including a concert at the legendary Carnegie Hall. In the late summer of 2015, the ensemble embarks on a European festival tour, and in the spring of 2016 the ensemble appears in Barcelona, Aix-en-Provence as well as eight German cities. In October 2016 Anne-Sophie Mutter celebrates the 35th anniversary of her Japanese debut with a tour through Asia with her Virtuosi. The Aida Stucki Award The Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation first presented the Aida Stucki Award in New York in April 2011.

The award, which carries a cash value of 10,000 Euros, went to the double bass player Roman Patkoló. In October 2013 the cellist Daniel Müller-Schott was honoured with the Aida Stucki Award in Munich. With this new sponsorship award, the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation honours outstanding, upcoming string soloists, who follow the strong traditional line of Aida Stucki and thus of the European tradition of playing and education. The future presentation of the Aida Stucki Award is not bound to a fixed rotation, but is decided by the Foundation. 08/2015 Anne-Sophie Mutter: Complex as the Music She Plays - The New York Times The New York Times Music |As Complex as the Music She Plays Search Continue reading the main story Photo The German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will perform next week with the New York Philharmonic.

Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times IT seems safe to predict that the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will play a run of concerts with the New York Philharmonic in 10 years or so, as she did in 2000 and as she is doing again this season, as artist in residence . After all, unless she were finally to act on occasional vague hints of an early retirement, Ms. Mutter, now 47, should still be at the height of her considerable powers. What is harder to predict is what she might play. If she follows form, she will present several pieces that have yet to be written. In 2000 she played only 20th-century music, including newish works by Witold Lutoslawski, Krzysztof Penderecki and Wolfgang Rihm. Now, in three orchestral programs and in assorted chamber concerts, she is adding four new works — two by Mr. Rihm, one each by Mr.

Penderecki and Sebastian Currier — to the 14 world premieres she has listed on her own Web site ( anne-sophie-mutter.de ) and giving the New York premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s “In Tempus Praesens” (2007), also written for her. Two of those pieces — for violin and double bass, by Mr. Penderecki and Mr. Rihm, for a chamber program on April 3 — have yet to be finished, Ms. Mutter said on Monday in a telephone interview from Vancouver, British Columbia, where she was beginning a North American tour. “The deadline is the end of the year,” she said, “and I do pray that it will happen.” Mr. Rihm, she added with apparent relief, had at least come up with a working title, “The Elf and the Bear.” (Which instrument might the elf be, and which the bear?) Continue reading the main story No such anxiety attaches to the first of Ms. Mutter’s three chamber concerts in the Philharmonic residency.

Nor do any Philharmonic players: on Sunday afternoon she plays Beethoven’s three string trios, works she has performed throughout her career, with the violist Yuri Bashmet and the cellist Lynn Harrell at Avery Fisher Hall. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The first Philharmonic subscription program, beginning on Thursday, is also steeped in familiarity, with Ms. Mutter playing and leading (she avoids the term conducting) Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 1, 3 and 5. While still in her midteens, she performed Nos. 3 and 5 on her first recording, for Deutsche Grammophon, in 1978, with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. (She still records for Deutsche Grammophon, which recently released performances of the three Brahms violin sonatas by Ms. Mutter and the pianist Lambert Orkis, on DVD as well as on CD.) Ms. Mutter and the orchestra will fill out the Mozart program with the premiere of Mr. Rihm’s “Lichtes Spiel” (“Play of Light”), conducted by Michael Francis, a young English maestro she has taken under her generous wing.

Written to fit alongside the Mozart concertos, she said, “it’s a summer piece, rather sunny, very lyrical,” though she had worked only from a piano reduction and had yet to hear the orchestration. Common wisdom holds that Philharmonic audiences will not sit still for new music, but Ms. Mutter has found otherwise. “New York audiences are so incredibly educated, and they seem to really enjoy it,” she said, while allowing for a “small group” of unadventurous listeners. She has probably also found that flattery will get her somewhere. The Philharmonic series picks up again in March, with a program featuring “In Tempus Praesens” (“For the Present Time,” as Ms. Gubaidulina loosely translates it ). That work, which Ms. Mutter has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon (along with Bach concertos), pits the violin soloist against a violinless orchestra heavy with woodwinds, brasses and percussion. Written by a composer who long fought the Soviet system, it can be taken to represent the individual at odds with society, said Ms. Mutter, herself a headstrong musician.

It evokes Sophia, the goddess of wisdom, she added, and “by whatever coincidence, the goddess of wisdom is the violin part.” Coincidence? Probably not. But Ms. Mutter sees her relationship to society in more complex terms. She likes to describe her career as social work. There is, first, the music itself. “I would like to point out that music is more than it seems to be,” she said. “It can be such a wonderful bridge between people and the world around us. It is a useful, very small-scale force that makes life a little better for people.” Photo Anne-Sophie Mutter during a recent concert in San Francisco. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times Then there are Ms. Mutter’s causes. In 1997 she founded the Anne-Sophie Mutter Circle of Friends Foundation (since renamed the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation ), which aids fledgling string players in their attempts to establish careers by helping them find teachers, adequate instruments and performance opportunities. Advertisement Continue reading the main story In the case of a double bassist, Roman Patkolo, whom Ms.

Mutter calls the Paganini of the instrument, she came to realize that one of the biggest obstacles to his advancement was the lack of suitable repertory for the bull fiddle: thus the duos for violin and double bass that Ms. Mutter will play with him in April, commissioned by the foundation. And all the young protégés will join Ms. Mutter in a program centered on Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” after the Philharmonic residency has ended. Ms. Mutter plays three or four charity concerts a year, to benefit musical projects close to home, like her foundation, as well as nonmusical ventures around the world, like aiding victims of the earthquake in Sichuan Province, China, in 2008. She won the prestigious Siemens Music Prize that year for her outstanding contribution to the world of music and immediately funneled half of the monetary award of 200,000 euros (about $309,000 at the time) into her foundation. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy That is the public Ms. Mutter.

The private Ms. Mutter is more mysterious. Because she guards her personal affairs closely, the many published profiles of her tend to read similarly. There is typically surprise that despite the glamorous image she cultivates (sure to be enhanced by the sleek and slinky photograph on the cover the 2011 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, which proclaims her musician of the year), she is a deeply serious and thoughtful artist; surprise that despite a reputation as a prickly interview, direct, terse and not given to small talk, she is eminently engaging and even amusing. Born in Rheinfelden, Germany, in 1963, Ms. Mutter now lives in Munich. “I’m just a mother with two children,” she said of her private life with perfect amiability. Those children — from her first marriage, to Detlef Wunderlich, Karajan’s lawyer, who died of cancer in 1995 — are Arabella, 19, who is majoring in art, and Richard, 16, whose studies include music but are not necessarily directed toward a career in it. An affinity for music runs in the family. Although Ms.

Mutter’s parents were merely avid listeners, her two brothers, both older, performed for a time on piano and violin. One is now a journalist, like their father; the other, a lawyer. And more music entered the family in 2002, when Ms. Mutter married the composer, pianist and conductor André Previn. Her 14 world premieres include 5 that Mr. Previn wrote for her. They divorced in 2006 but remain friends. What Ms. Mutter knows of Alan Gilbert — who, now in his second season as the Philharmonic’s music director, will conduct her final orchestral program, in June — she learned from Mr. Previn, she said. She called Mr. Previn her “private spy” in New York and her “in-house composer, so to speak.” Ms. Mutter’s reticence with reporters makes a few personal revelations to be found on her Web site all the more surprising.

Among her favorite books , for example, she lists Erich Fromm’s “Art of Loving,” and writes, “When I was expecting my first child, I was very afraid of making the same mistake with him that my parents made with me” (though her first child turned out to be a girl). “There was no particular mistake,” Ms. Mutter elaborated in the interview. “No matter how much we love our child, we will be unjust and will not understand the child at a given moment. This was not meant as a criticism but as a humble understanding of having the responsibility that comes with raising children.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Yet even in a personal note on the site, Ms. Mutter remains circumspect, beyond her focus on motherhood: “My dream of happiness? That’s my secret! What would be the biggest tragedy for me? To be a bad mother. What I would like to be? I’m getting there ...” Similarly, she lists her favorite composer there as “everyone I play.” This is a category that she hopes will one day include Pierre Boulez. In an interview with The New York Times way back in 1998, Ms. Mutter said that she was waiting for a piece from him.

She is still waiting. “I recently saw him in Baden-Baden,” she said, “and he told me he is in the process of writing.” “Ask me in 10 years,” she added. Just in time, then, for her next extended stint with the Philharmonic? A version of this article appears in print on November 12, 2010, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: As Complex as the Music She Plays. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Anne-Sophie Mutter - Mozart: The Violin Sonatas - Amazon.com Music Editorial Reviews Product Description SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION DIGIPAK For the grand finale of her best-selling Mozart Project, Anne-Sophie Mutter has joined with pianist Lambert Orkis for her first-ever recording of Mozart's violin sonatas. Anne-Sophie Mutter's Mozart Project has been nothing if not ambitious. Her aim: a survey of all Mozart's major compositions for solo violin. The first two releases, the Violin Concertos and a selection of Piano Trios has both been commercial and critical successes around the world.

The final segment, the Violin Sonatas, is being released as part of Deutsche Grammophon's "Mozart Forever" celebrations. It will also mark an additional milestone: the 30th anniversary of Mutter's concert debut. This live CD recording took place during Mutter's performances in Munich in February 2006, which were also filmed for TV broadcast and DVD release. Amazon.com There are many excellent recordings of Mozart's Violin Sonatas on disc to choose from, but Anne-Sophie Mutter's interpretations rise quickly to the top. Her approach is certainly closer to "old fashioned" than "authentic instrument." She sings the lines as if they were arias and uses vibrato liberally to emphasize the unwritten texts. Her use of dynamics can be extreme, from a soft murmur to a full-blooded cry. There is a sense of warmth and even rapture in some of the slow movements that is absent from most of the "authentic" recordings. Mutter's vigorous approach to the allegros captures attention. Her great technique is most welcome in the formality of the menuettos.

Lambert Orkis's piano accompaniments are handsome and supportive throughout, and his work as a fortepianist pays off well. He has an ingratiating touch and really shines in K. 454 and K. 481, where the piano is given equal footing with the violin. There are almost four-and-a-half hours of music here, and all of it is beautifully performed. --Robert Levine LPO/Anne-Sophie Mutter, Royal Festival Hall, London | Music | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close There was something startling about Anne-Sophie Mutter's programme with the London Philharmonic Orchestra: she played and directed Bach's three violin concertos on modern instruments without any concessions to period practice. As one of the world's most famous virtuosos, Mutter seems perfectly qualified to rehabilitate a style of Bach playing that has become almost totally unfashionable. But her steely performances and unyielding direction turned these effervescent pieces into hackneyed warhorses and, instead of reclaiming the concertos for modern instrument groups, her playing embodied the cliches of big-band baroque performances.

Nearly every movement of the concertos is derived from dance forms, but there was no hint of grace or charm in Mutter's interpretations of those in A minor and E major. The finales were robbed of their infectious energy in performances that were crudely mechanical. Where the music should have been buoyed by imagination and insight, it was brutalised by Mutter's relentless, hard-edged sound, and an approach that treated the concertos as if they needed to be beaten into submission. However, in the slow movements, there were glimpses of a warmer side to her playing. In the andante of the A minor concerto, she created a sudden moment of drama, as a delicate melodic line was suspended over an aching dissonance in the accompanying strings, a rare flowering of lyricism. In the double concerto, Mutter was partnered by the young Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan, and in each movement it was the teenager's playing that was the most sensitive: where Mutter's phrasing was square and literal, his was imaginative and supple, and his heartfelt playing of the main melody of the slow movement provided the concert's most memorable frisson.

In fact, it was Khachatryan, not Mutter, who proved the possibility of playing Bach without ceding to the early music movement. Anne-Sophie Mutter — Free listening, videos, concerts, stats and photos at Last.fm ludwing van beethoven Anne-Sophie Mutter (born June 29, 1963 in Rheinfelden, Germany) is a German violinist. Mutter started playing the piano at age five. Shortly after, she began playing the violin, studying with Erna Honigberger and Aida Stucki. After winning several prizes, she was exempted from school to dedicate herself to her art. When she was 13, conductor Herbert von Karajan invited her to play with the Berlin Philharmonic. In 1977, she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival and with the English… read more Anne-Sophie Mutter, Johannes Brahms, Alexis Weissenberg - Violin Sonatas 1-3 - Amazon.com Music By T.

Fisher VINE VOICE on February 12, 2011 Format: Audio CD|Verified Purchase These 1983 performance of Brahms' three violin sonatas on the EMI label were recorded when Anne-Sophie Mutter was just 20 years old but had already taken the world by storm as the Wunderkind put before the world by Herbert von Karajan. Alexis Weissenberg, the pianist, was 54 and had already had a career of 25 years (since 1947, but with a ten-year break). Weissenberg's 1966 comeback had also been advanced by association with von Karajan. So here we have two Karajan protegés -- a fiery 20-year-old and a seasoned professional -- playing some of the most dramatic and passionate works in the Romantic violin sonata literature. I thoroughly enjoyed it, these are outstanding performances. Anne-Sophie Mutter returned with fresh recordings of the Brahms sonatas last year on the DG label (see this recording .

I haven't heard those yet, but some comparative listening on how her readings have changed and grown over the last 27 years would certainly be an enjoyable use of an afternoon. One of these days! ByA customeron November 6, 1999 Format: Audio CD|Verified Purchase I do not, myself, know much about violin music or violinists; however, I recently gave this CD timidly to a good friend of mine who I respect highly for his musical taste, who is an also an aficionado of violin performance, and he loved it! His remarks were that it is a relatively little known recording, and that it shows Anna-Sophie Mutter at a fresh point of her career, where she still has a very natural and fairly traditional style of playing. He said that for Brahms fans who prefer a more traditional interpretation, it is an excellent listen. By Mary Ann Bergman on August 17, 2012 Format: Audio CD Brahms composed his three sonatas for violin and piano between 1878 and 1888. They are among his best chamber music works, though they are not as well known as his other chamber music.

The first two, in G major and A major, are based in part on melodies from songs that Brahms had previously written. The last, in D minor, is a more dramatic work whose outer movements recall the intense emotional character of Brahms' piano concerto in the same key, written during and immediately after the years when he was associated with Robert and Clara Schumann. My favorite version of these sonatas is the 1985 recording by violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, who especially emphasize the lyrical character of the first two sonatas while still doing justice to the dramatic moments in the third. This CD, with a twenty year-old Anne-Sophie Mutter as violinist and a seasoned Alexis Weissenberg at the piano, is more dramatic overall, with livelier tempos but sacrificing some of the more lyrical moments. The lyrical character of the G major sonata comes through well in this recording, but the A major is taken rather quickly, and the second movement opening loses its songlike character. There's no stinting on the drama inherent in the D minor sonata in their performance, in fact they make a tour de force of the last movement as they charge through it.

Mutter's violin skills are very impressive for one so young, and the fact that she and Weissenberg are able to keep it together at such a rapid pace is quite stunning. If you like your Brahms to be "on the edge," you will especially like this last movement. This CD was recorded in 1983. Overall, the sound quality is excellent. Occasionally, the violin tends to dominate the piano part to some degree, though in the more passionate passages the piano comes into its own. The included brochure contains a chart of Brahms' life and major works along with a brief writeup on Mutter, but says nothing about the sonatas themselves. In summary, I prefer the more lyrical approach of Perlman and Ashkenazy, but I think that some Brahmsians will like the more emphatic performances of Mutter and Weissenberg on this CD. By Gorky on February 15, 2000 Format: Audio CD Weissenberg has been always considered as a controversial artist certainly because his way of playing piano was under some influence of an uncomparable teacher, W.Landowska who was an outstanding harpsichord artist.

His touch is sometime too technical, hard...and critics have been tough with him, but in this record one thing is sure, he gives a full dimension to the violin played by A.S Mutter, the perfect complement to add the value needed and it is at his honour. Nothing too much, just what is needed with a perfect touch and balance. I was surprise by the energy deployed by this young violonist. Since it has been confirmed by her most recent version of the Brahms concerto (with K.Masur). The three sonates are well played and we must admit that her progress have been fantastic compared to the time she was playing Mozart concerto adagio in 1978 under the baguette of Karajan. Here is some sensible, emotional violin sound with some added energy when needed. Alexis Weissenberg is the perfect companion to balance a so nice execution. No doubt, an excellent record to have. By towanda on May 7, 2001 Format: Audio CD A-SM.

what i love about A-SM is that when you puchase one of her recordings, you know that you're guaranteed to get at least the basics: flawless technique and intonation, amazingly rich, lush sound, beautiful vibrato, etc...but what you can also always count on is her unflagging musicality and musical intelligence. her music always says SOMETHING (even if, god forbid, you don't really care for what she says). apply all of this to the brahms sonatas, and what you get is pure magic. it certainly helps that she is so at home with the music (brahms always seems to fit her like second skin -- her recent recording of the brahms concerto is everything you could ever expect or want of a brahms piece). the only complaint i might have about this cd is that weissenberg seems to have been miked from quite a distance. the violin sings and soars over and beyond the piano, the result being a work for violin with piano accompaniment as opposed to chamber music between the violin and piano. this is unfortunate, as weissenberg's playing is exquisite here.

having said that much, this is by far the best recording of the brahms' violin and piano sonatas i've heard. Violin Tuition Wimbledon | Cherry Pie Music Violin Concerto in G Minor (Bruch) Spring from The four Seasons (Vivaldi) Vittorio Monti (Czardas) Did You Know… David Garrett broke the world speed record for the violin, playing the Flight of the Bumblebee at a rate of 13 notes per second. Is The Violin For You? The violin is a great instrument if you would like to play as a soloist in either classical or folk music or in an orchestra or string quartet. It can be quite difficult to master in the early stages and requires a good technique and perseverance. Be prepared to put up with lots of squeaks in the early stages. However, those who do persevere benefit not only from developing their musical ability, but also their brain. Violinists have far more connections between the left and right sides of the brain than non-violinists. Violins come in different sizes which means that children can start learning from a very young age. We teach all levels of violin from beginner to advanced. Post navigation Please type in the code

Question: Which musical instrument is Anne-Sophie Mutter famous for playing?
Answer: VIOLIN